


Evasive

by Ailette



Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: Established Relationship, Guy is an idiot, Hurt/Comfort, Imported, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 03:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2214492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ailette/pseuds/Ailette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the deep of winter, Robin is searching the forest for Gisborne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Evasive

It was definitively too cold to be running through a forest half hidden in snow. The trees were bare and the sky a dark grey, making the usually so lively woods seem like a graveyard. _A very cold graveyard at that_ , Robin mused as he dodged another heap of snow crashing down from a fir only a few metres away from him. Slightly annoyed already, he stopped in his hasty steps to frown down at the offending white. It had to be getting warmer for this to happen. And yet, it was still too cold.

Sighing and resisting the urge to curse under his breath, the outlaw started to go faster again. At this rate, he’d never find the man. And what was his business in the woods in the deepest winter anyway? Instead of just staying where he was and letting Robin have a few days of rest… But of course that wasn’t going to happen. It seemed to be physically impossible for Guy of Gisborne to ever let Robin have anything remotely resembling peace. It just wasn’t in his nature. Fuelled by his renewed anger at the other man, Robin carried on with his search. If he didn’t find him soon… No, that wasn’t the right line of thinking. The situation was bad enough without him making it worse in his head. Correct phrasing: _When_ he found Gisborne, he’d settle this issue. Once and for all. He was aware that he should have done this a long time ago already—and he’d tried—but Gisborne could be incredibly… evasive.

He passed the small pond with its treacherously solid looking surface, only sparing a brief look in the general direction. Not even Gisborne would be _that_ stupid. The man was actually rather clever. Well, sometimes. About this, he certainly hadn’t been very smart. Robin could feel the cold air refusing to simply go in and out of his lungs if he continued at this pace and, unwillingly, he slowed down to eye his surroundings a little closer. It didn’t matter. According to Much this should be close to where Gisborne had vanished and chances were that the man still was around here somewhere. This time he didn’t stop himself from cursing, letting at least a little portion of his anger seep out into the cold. His gaze followed a nearly invisible trace of footsteps as they disappeared down a slope until they fell onto a black and brown patch where the snow had melted.

For a very short and foolish moment, Robin wondered if his anger could have taken corporeal form and melted the ice with its hotness before he mentally slapped himself upside the head and carefully started towards the cliff. The patch looked more and more human the closer he got.

“Oi!” he shouted and managed to take a few more steps before the patch started to stir. He could hardly believe what happened next. Robin Hood, living legend, specifically _living in the_ _woods_ , somehow accomplished what most four-year-olds avoided without thinking: running too fast, his left foot left the ground before his other had gone back to it and made him trip. Face first, he fell forward. The desperate grabbing of hands resulted in nothing but thin air, letting him belly-flop into the cold wet mass.

Careful not to slip up again, he pushed himself up, glaring down for a second before sitting back on his hunches. Never mind the furry coat he’d taken, he would be soaked and maybe a little frozen in a short matter of time. It took him quite a few of these precious moments to place the hoarse laughter and another few to realize that it wasn’t laughter at all, but a harsh sounding cough.

Not bothering to get up any further than he already had, Robin pointed his slightly shaking index finger at the ill sounding man as he crawled forward. “I hate you,” he established hotly. “Everything that has happened—it’s your fault. If you hadn’t decided to come to the forest in the middle of winter, you’d be in your cosy little manor, in what used to be my bedroom, having the servants heat everything. Or you’d be in the castle with the Sheriff who would undoubtedly cuddle you until you’re warm. But, no. You have to come here and try to ruin my life. _Every day_!”

Gisborne shot him a half-amused, half-annoyed look through heavy lidded eyes. “It’s not… every day.”

Against his will, Robin winced at the sound of Gisborne’s voice. The man had sounded bad the last time he’d heard him speak, but now it sounded like he was fighting for every single syllable to even form and leave his mouth. It was easy to imagine the red spots on his face to have come from the cold, but Robin knew better. Still angry, but now more at himself than Gisborne, he reached out to feel the other man’s forehead.

“I’m too damn good for this world,” he muttered and then winced again as he felt his fingers sting where he had touched the too hot skin.

“I keep… telling you… that.”

“Oh, shut it,” Robin swatted him ever so lightly on the shoulder, making sure to stay as far away from the angry bruises he knew to be on Gisborne’s chest. “I’m not in the mood for your ‘Come to the dark side’ jokes.”

Another cough escaped Gisborne’s lips, but this time they were graced by a very slight smile. Nervously, Robin began to fidget around on the other man’s right leg. The branch they had used to stabilize it had a crack, but luckily was still whole, which meant the fall couldn’t have been too bad. If there was one thing Robin really didn’t need to happen at the moment, it was for the already broken leg to be damaged any more than it already had been. On the other hand, could he really use the Sheriff just suddenly appearing out of nowhere right now? A clue: no.

“Are you even still allowed to make those? After you switched sides and all,” finally being satisfied with checking on Gisborne’s wounds, Robin looked up again, toothy smile firmly in place. The taller man rolled his eyes at him, but Robin couldn’t help it as his smile just transformed into a grin at the sight. It had taken them such a long way to get here, absurd as the situation may have been this time (and wasn’t it always?) and he still… not doubted it, but thought of it as a not so small miracle every time.

From the first time they had come together in the most bizarre way possible, over cold rejections and life threatening situations and kidnappings, it had come to this. A relationship, truer and warmer than Robin could have ever imagined. Yet, when Gisborne (and he still had trouble calling his partner by his first name, even though they regularly shared a bed by now) had eventually left the castle and everything he was and owned behind to rescue Robin and his gang, Robin had been unable to do anything but gape at him stupidly over what felt like the next few hours but could in fact only have been minutes. Until they reached their lair (after Much had finally given up on trying to convince them that all of this had to be part of the Sheriff’s plan to find and kill them) and Robin had noticed the odd angle his partner was holding his leg.

At the memory, Robin’s brows furrowed a little _. Right_ , he thought, _the first thing Gisborne did after switching sides was getting himself into trouble by not telling me something. Anyone sensing a pattern_? Over the last couple of days, Gisborne had taken to short walks around the camp. Claiming he needed to move his legs in order to ever be able to normally walk again, while Robin was pretty sure it had only been an excuse to finally be let out. Gisborne had been slowly going insane in the confined space of the lair and, more specifically, his and Robin’s sleeping place. At the same time, Gisborne was a control freak if Robin had ever met one and was never really comfortable unless he knew his surroundings well enough to come up with at least three exit strategies and one undeniable advantage over possible enemies from the top of his head.

The walks had slowly widened out, leading to Robin eventually giving up on secretly following his partner around and instead asking Much to do it. And even Much hadn’t been able to keep up with Gisborne today. True, it was only due to the fact that some of the castle guards had suddenly shown up and Much had to take his legs in his hands to get away with his life, but still. A man with a broken leg and a really bad cold shouldn’t be able to outrun a perfectly fit outlaw.

“I want to say that I’m feeling sympathetic,” Robin supplied helpfully as he helped his partner on his feet, one arm slung around his waist and the other holding on to Gisborne’s hand, even though he could practically sense the other man’s rejection of the mere thought of needing help. “But this is completely your fault. I told you not to just go running around in the woods. I told you to either wait until you’re completely healed up again, or take one of the gang with you.”

Gisborne glared at him and opened his mouth to speak, but Robin interrupted him before more than an animalistic growl had left it. “Or at least ask someone for directions! No one’s going to think any less of you just because you can’t navigate through the forest yet. Hell, _I_ probably can’t even navigate myself through it with this mass of snow!” Seeing how Gisborne only intensified his glare, Robin decided that talking sense into his partner only worked when he was losing his voice and closer to wearing a thick layer of ice as clothing instead of his usual leather attire.

They continued to shuffle back to the lair slowly, too slowly for Robin’s taste. He was shivering all over and he’d only been out in the open for maybe two hours. Gisborne had been half-buried under a small avalanche for the better part of the day; this had to be torture for him. Robin shot his partner another worried look, searching for any sign of pain on the scruffy face he’d gotten so used to seeing around him at all times. He found none and wasn’t really surprised at that; Gisborne wasn’t one to wear his feelings on his sleeves in the first place, but it seemed to physically hurt his ego to show the slightest sign of weakness, especially in Robin’s presence.

“Just ask for help next time,” Robin chastised. Pressing that little bit closer to his partner and then adding, more softly, “Please.”

He jumped a little when he felt something cold slide around his neck, only to realize that it was Gisborne’s hand a second later. The smile from earlier returned to his face as he leaned back into the other man, his head guided onto Gisborne’s chest by the pulling hand. He could feel the vibrations of his partner’s deep voice running through it even before he heard the first rough syllable.

“I didn’t mean to worry you.”

This was as close to an apology he would ever get. It couldn’t be much further from an apology, actually, but for Robin it meant a whole lot more than those few words could ever mean to an outsider. Gisborne had his own way of saying things and it had taken him a long time to finally understand him and only because his partner had finally let him in enough. He didn’t need a whole lot of words or gestures, really. It wasn’t the amount of words, it was the mere existence of them, of this, of them, that made Robin really glad about living in a crappy lair in the middle of a muddy forest with his King unthinkably far away and some sad excuse in power.

Even though Gisborne really was an incredibly evasive bastard most of the time.

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally posted at http://ailette.livejournal.com/34302.html)  
> Beta: As always, thanks to the wonderful freakydarling !  
> A/N: After more than a year, I finally wrote something in this fandom again. If you like it, you can thank starbuck_a_dale for prompting it. This was written in the middle of December, with lots of snow on my mind, so excuse the cold setting. xD It strayed quite far from what I planned to write originally, but I think I like how it turned out. :)


End file.
